Gun buybacks don’t reduce gun violence, either

posted at 9:51 pm on January 14, 2013 by Mary Katharine Ham

While we’re “vigorously” pursuing “meaningful” gun legislation that can’t possibly make it through Congress if it’s anything near “meaningful” enough for this president, let’s also remind everyone that those flashy gun buyback programs local politicians love to tout do about as much to reduce gun violence as, well, gun control does in Chicago.

Researchers who have evaluated gun control strategies say buybacks – despite their popularity – are among the least effective ways to reduce gun violence. They say targeted police patrols, intervention efforts with known criminals and, to a lesser extent, tougher gun laws all work better than buybacks.

The biggest weakness of buybacks, which offer cash or gift cards for guns, is that the firearms they usually collect are insignificant when measured against the arsenal now in the hands of American citizens.

Notice the ranking of solutions worth a damn when it comes to gun violence— police patrols, intervention, then tougher gun laws. That Wayne LaPierre is so out there with his suggestion of increased police presence in schools. Buybacks are even less effective than more gun control. Why? For the same reason gun control doesn’t work— buybacks deal mostly with law-abiding citizens, not criminals:

The relatively small number of guns recovered isn’t the only problem, Scott said. Buyback programs tend to attract people who are least likely to commit crimes and to retrieve guns that are least likely to be used in crimes.

Scott and others say violent criminals – the people who do most of the shooting and killing – steer clear of buyback programs unless they’re trying to make some quick cash by selling a weapon they don’t want anymore.

That means buyback campaigns more often end up with hunting rifles or old revolvers from someone’s attic than with automatic weapons from the trunk of a criminal’s car.

“They don’t get a lot of crime guns off the street,” said Matt Makarios, a criminal justice professor who studied buyback programs while at the University of Cincinnati in 2008. “You’re only going to reduce the likelihood of gun crimes if you reduce the number of guns used in crimes.”

A buyback in Tucson, Ariz., last week collected about 200 firearms, many of them old or inoperable, in exchange for about $10,000 worth of grocery gift cards. A few hundred feet away, gun dealers set up tables and offered cash for any guns in good enough condition to resell.

“Every gun that came in was an old gun, no assault weapons,” Tom Ditsch, who watched the event, told The Associated Press. “They didn’t even take any weapons off the streets.”

Supporters of buybacks are reduced to arguing they “raise awareness,” just to give you an idea of how big a failure they are in their actual objective. The upside of a buyback program is that at least citizens aren’t being coerced out of their guns, but are instead parting with them voluntarily. Unfortunately, someone was coerced out of the tax money to pay for them. But hey, it’s showy, ineffective, expensive, and gives organizers a deep sense of moral superiority. When you’ve got all that, who needs to actually reduce gun violence?

But don’t look now, the editorial-page team at one of New Jersey’s biggest newspapers is pro-gun buyback because it makes them feel good, so there, and anyone who thinks different probably just wants a “paramilitary weapon manufactured with the express purpose of shredding humans to death.” Uh huh. Who thinks the writer could actually point out a gun with that “express purpose” in a line-up and explain why it’s different than any other semi-automatic handgun of a similar caliber?

Australia is often mentioned by liberals as a gun-control model the U.S. could follow, despite the fact that it still faces mass shootings post-draconian gun control. I appreciate the relative honesty of these liberals who are actually saying they’d like to ban most, if not all, guns. That is entirely unconstitutional, but at least could plausibly reduce gun violence, unlike an “assault weapons ban.” But there’s a rather important part of Australia’s gun control that would be logistically impossible in America.

Australia implemented very restrictive gun control “banning all semiautomatic rifles and semiautomatic and pump-action shotguns and imposing a more restrictive licensing system on other firearms,” but it didn’t just stop there. The government then bought back and destroyed hundreds of thousands of existing guns to the tune of $500 million. This is perhaps the only instance where one might argue a buyback was helpful in reducing gun violence, though studies of Australia’s gun crime rates show “relatively small” improvement thanks to the law. There are an estimated 300 million guns in this country. The feds have neither the competence nor the money to pull off the biggest buyback in world history, and I like to believe the American people they’d be targeting aren’t yet quite docile enough to help them.

None of this, however, should be construed to mean they’ll never try. Lord knows I’ve stopped assuming much is beyond this administration.

Blowback

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Walmart has stopped selling ammunition until his majesty decides in which way he’ll usurp our Constitution, finding any in this area has become scarce.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the potential for how Walmart could profit from cutting a deal. As The Washington Post reported last week:

One potential strategy [for gun control] would be to win support for specific measures from interest groups that are normally aligned with the NRA, according to one person who works closely with the administration on gun-related issues and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity.

For instance, this person suggested, Walmart and other major gun retailers may have an incentive to support closing a loophole that allows people to bypass background checks if they purchase firearms at gun shows or through other types of private sales. That could result in more people buying guns in retail stores. [Washington Post]

Or as the DC Examiner’s Tim Carney explained on Fox Business, “it’s just like [how] car dealers would benefit if you made it harder for me to sell my car to you.”

Biometric sensors of the type that would be attached to guns are easily confused by liquids, the two that come to mind are blood and sweat which have a high probability of being present when the gun is needed. Also, if my wife was home alone and responding to an intruder, what does she do, call me to come home so she can operate my pistol?

Bullet tracing would put make ammo so expensive that few people except for those of Bloomberg’s financial ability would be able to afford it.

“Bullet tracing would put make ammo so expensive that few people except for those of Bloomberg’s financial ability would be able to afford it.

Any other great ideas?

Bishop on January 14, 2013 at 10:01 PM”

And how many bullets does a law-abiding citizen need to protect himself? I would wager 100 bullets is enough to last anyone a lifetime. And 20 or 30 would be enough in reality. So gimme a break on ammo being unaffordable.

institute biometric controls on guns so that guns can only be operated by the registered owners

nonpartisan on January 14, 2013 at 9:54 PM

But then when I steal your gun, I’d have to cut your hand off. It would get stinky and totally gross after a few days.
Although maybe I could make custom gun leather for a gun, an extra magazine and a hand.

Prior to the early 20th century, all shotgun barrels were forged by heating narrow strips of iron and steel and shaping them around a mandrel. This process was referred to as “laminating” or “Damascus” and these barrels were found on shotguns that sold for $12.These types of barrels earned a reputation for weakness and were never meant to be used with modern smokeless powder, or any kind of moderately powerful explosive.

“And who the heck are you to tell me how much ammo anyone should need?

Of, that’s right – an idiot.

catmman on January 14, 2013 at 10:07 PM”

Your ammo is less important than protecting the lives of kids. If one kids life is saved means you dont get to enjoy your fridays target shooting, that is a sacrifice I’m willing to enforce. And the president has the power to do so with executive orders.

Again, no law abiding gun owner should have any problem with ammo tracing…unless they have ulterior motives.

And how many bullets does a law-abiding citizen need to protect himself? I would wager 100 bullets is enough to last anyone a lifetime. And 20 or 30 would be enough in reality. So gimme a break on ammo being unaffordable.

nonpartisan on January 14, 2013 at 10:03 PM

Wouldn’t you want gun owner to be proficient in the use of their guns, i.e. practice?

I’m not sure how many “bullets” a citizen needs but anyone who wants to be well-versed in handling a gun will go through many “rounds”.

So what about those biometrics? What happens if someone other than me needs to use my gun to protect themselves?

These bullets get traced…when, exactly? After removal from the corpse of a victim? It’s pretty hard to trace a bullet (except a tracer bullet, natch) while it’s in flight, and even if you could, it wouldn’t stop it from entering the body of the target.

ALT, I think this has been mentioned before, but regarding your CHL: It’s best to qualify with a semi-automatic instead of a revolver. That way, you can carry either one. If you qualify with the revolver, you can’t carry a semi-automatic.

Your ammo is less important than protecting the lives of kids. If one kids life is saved means you dont get to enjoy your fridays target shooting, that is a sacrifice I’m willing to enforce.

F*CK you, dimwitted half-a$$ed f*ckwit. I can’t believe you pulled out that sub-moronic ‘just one life’, ‘for the children’ bullsh1t – hey, champ – CLIMB DOWN OFF THE GRAVES OF THOSE KIDS, okay, you ghoulish f*ck. And secondly, YOU don’t get to decide what sacrifices *I* am going to make, m’kay?

@nonpartisan – Here are a few problems with what you’re proposing:
1) biometrics – James raised the valid issue of needing to protect oneself with another person’s gun. Also, firing with the opposite hand. There’s also this: The most imporant three features of a gun are these: reliability, reliability, and reliability. Guns are designed with that purpose first. Adding an electronic circuit whose only purpose is to *prevent* firing (and I say this as an electrical engineer!) is just asking for trouble. Besides, there would be a necessary delay in order to read the fingerprint, in a situation where any delay can be fatal.

Also, it would increase the cost of the gun, making it harder for poor people to buy. (why do you hate poor people?! j/k)

2) serial numbers on every round. Are you referring to the brass casing, or the bullet itself? If you mean the bullet, it ain’t gonna do you any good. Besides the rifling of the gun which would obliterate any markings, the bullets from an AR-15 fragment on impact, and hollow point bullets mushroom, so there’s a slim chance any such markings would survive. And, lest we forget, the bullet just took an *explosion* on its backside.

If you mean the casing, well, that might not do you any good either. Ammo can be stolen (often with the firearm itself), brass can be collected.

Oh, and nothing is preventing criminals from removing the serials from the ammunition either. Just like they do with the serials on guns.

But don’t look now, the editorial-page team at one of New Jersey’s biggest newspapers is pro-gun buyback because it makes them feel good, so there, and anyone who thinks different probably just wants a “paramilitary weapon manufactured with the express purpose of shredding humans to death.” Uh huh.

Hmmm, I bet that the brilliant people at that newspaper are probably in favour of a “nuke buy-back” as a way of getting North Korea, Pakistan, China, Russia, Iran, Israel, France, the UK, India, and the United States to give up their nuclear weapons.

The term “buy-back” is even more ignorant/stupid than the idea of adding unnecessarily complex and sensitive controls to a personal arm held as a weapon of last resort. When did the government ever own or sell those arms?

And how many bullets does a law-abiding citizen need to protect himself? I would wager 100 bullets is enough to last anyone a lifetime. And 20 or 30 would be enough in reality. So gimme a break on ammo being unaffordable.

nonpartisan on January 14, 2013 at 10:03 PM

nonpartisan, I’ve probably fired off between 10k-15k in the past 5 years or so and I only hit the range or my parents country farm a moderate amount compared to several people I know.

Think about it, I’ll run through 50-200 rounds depending on the type of weapon and the size of the mag, how much time I wanna spend shooting, etc.

Let’s assume it’s either 9+1 or similar, using a basic 9mm pistol.. a 50rd box of decent ammo is between $8 and $20..

You would limit me to 25 rounds for my lifetime? Is that per dependent, person in home, or what? Can I get more ammo by having more babies like the welfare queens? At a minimum you are necessarily guaranteeing that any women who can somehow gain access to a weapon in your idea of society would have a very minimal chance of striking a target.

I find both unreasonable. First, Biometric controls do not exist yet, but let’s say they do. Biometric controls are effectively a safety. And a safety is a mechanical device that can fail. More importantly, like the internal lock on modern pistols, they can lock in the “safe” position, rendering the firearm useless in a self-defense situation.

Also, the one gun to one user also means that a household cannot be defended by one firearm (unless you wish each family member own a gun; meaning more guns sold – which I suspect you are opposed to).

There are currently well over 300 million guns in this country which already do not comport to your biometric vision. That’s well over 100 years worth of guns (as you know guns last a very long time)

I’ll also add that gloves would make firing one of these guns a non-starter.

Lastly, registration is not universal across the 50 states, nor should it be. Criminals don’t register their guns, only law-abiding citizens do.

To your second point, registering ammo sales is just an end run around the 2nd Amendment. Not to mention it is counter intuitive. I would assume you are also in favor of restrictions on the amount one can purchase? Because if an individual must go through a background check to buy ammo, then you better believe they will buy a metric ton of it when they do.

And I’ll say it again, criminals do not follow the rule of law. So it just makes it more of a burden on the law abiding citizen (which I suspect is your real goal).

Not sure what you are thinking of when you say “bullet tracing” – but if you are referring to microstamping, then I can tell you the idea of microstamping is completely ineffective – it doesn’t work (the head of firing pins wear quickly, and can be changed out easily), and most LEOs will even attest to that.

I was trying some out(dry firing) last week. I don’t have the strength to pull the slide back w/ o a lot of effort. I don’t have that problem with my pistol. Btw: I did apply for my CHL today.

annoyinglittletwerp on January 14, 2013 at 10:24 PM

I qualified with a Glock 23 and the slide is a little hard for me to pull too. It gets easier as you use the gun more. Most ranges will let you rent a gun but you might try something smaller like a Bersa Thunder 380. They’re fairly light. I have a revolver but I wanted to be able to use both and not be confined to a revolver.

El wrongo! Executive orders do NOT trump the Constitution, Federal law or Supreme Court decisions.

If you would like a primer on the subject, I suggest you read up on what happened when Truman attempted to nationalise the steel industry by Executive Order during the Korean War. See: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952). EPICF*CKINGFAIL!

No one loses their constitutional rights because 20 kids were killed by a CRIMINAL, who broke NUMEROUS laws. No one.

Barack Obama does NOT have the power through executive order to ban ANY guns, ANY ammunition, mandate fingerprinting, registration or anything else. Executive Orders may NOT change existing law nor may they create new law. An Executive Order can ONLY be used by a President to instruct agencies within the Executive Branch on how to perform their duties.

After they get fired…the point is that alone will deter perps from firing guns. Again, Im not saying tracing bullets will magically eliminate all gun killings, or the sandy tragedy, but I do think it will drastically reduce gun violence with no harm to law abiding owners (the only argument so far is that bullets will be more costly….well boo hoo)

This reminds me…about ten years ago Remington came out with a Model 700 that featured electronic ignition. Instead of a mechanical firing mechanism, you had an electric charge detonate the primer, Lock time was almost nonexistent…unless the battery got wet or you were out in the extreme cold or something. You know, normal hunting conditions. Then you had a very expensive stick.

Sorry, not going to have my family’s life dependent on similarly unreliable technology just to assuage the fears of beta-male know-nothings.

I broke the tip off the firing-pin of my dad’s Win M12 by dry-firing it.

listens2glenn on January 14, 2013 at 10:33 PM

I meant revolver. I’m going to qualify on that because right now, I just don’t feel ready for a pistol. I obviously don’t have problem with them-but I need to carry something that I feel comfortable with. I’m there w/ my .38.

You guys are making the classic mistake of making the perfect the enemy of the good.

So just because no solution is absolutely bullet-proof (pun intended), we should do nothing and just suck on our thumbs? Its sad that it takes a national tragedy to provide politicians the cover to do what’s necessary. Gnight folks.

I do think bullet tracing would be effective in saving lives without infringin gun owners rights.

nonpartisan

I’m afraid you’re wrong (and I think you may have missed my earlier post). Any markings on the bullet won’t survive, most likely. The back end of the bullet withstands the explosion of firing, the sides get imprinted by the rifling, and the whole thing gets twisted (or fragmented) when it impacts. There’s really nowhere on the bullet where you could engrave or print any markings where they would survive.

Walmart has stopped selling ammunition until his majesty decides in which way he’ll usurp our Constitution, finding any in this area has become scarce.
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Speakup on January 14, 2013 at 10:01 PM

I had heard Walmart is going to do this and of course it’s their choice but I buy lots of stuff at Walmart every week but while they are making their decision I will suspend all shopping there and I don’t even own a gun.

If current gun laws – which are very extensive- don’t deter criminals from committing crime, then why would ammo tracing be any different?

Criminals – by definition you jackwagon – don’t care for following the law!

All you’d do is end up having crooks buy their stuff from the black market. So we implement your ideal solution on ammo in the states: there’s a whole lotta ammo that the Russians and Chinese sell on the American market. Gonna make them fix their ammo as well? What about the millions of rounds already out there?

How do we retrofit biometrics on existing firearms they wouldn’t be compatible with?

This is all low hanging fruit. But again, stopping or reducing violence isn’t your goal, is it?

I’m afraid you’re wrong (and I think you may have missed my earlier post). Any markings on the bullet won’t survive, most likely. The back end of the bullet withstands the explosion of firing, the sides get imprinted by the rifling, and the whole thing gets twisted (or fragmented) when it impacts. There’s really nowhere on the bullet where you could engrave or print any markings where they would survive.

Mohonri on January 14, 2013 at 10:37 PM

ok, what about this idea (I kinda just thought about it)

Have every gun attached with a microchip that is linked to a national datacenter. Every time that gun is fired, the microchip records that info and sends it to the national database. That would have the same effect as bullettracing.